Chaos Burning

by Lauren Dane

  “Little pixie? Hmm.” She took another shot.

  “He’s nineteen feet tall, I guess everyone’s little compared to him.” Meriel sent him a wink. “I should have warned you about Lark’s hollow leg. She can eat and eat and eat and not gain a single pound. It’s annoying.”

  “It’s a gift.” Lark shrugged.

  They sat and drank for a while, eating and talking about all things unrelated to work.

  “Simon, that woman at the bar is totally eye-fucking you. If you’ll admit defeat, you can get over there and take her up on her offer.”

  “You’re incorrigible.” He mock frowned at her. He’d seen the woman Lark meant. Had seen her earlier when Gage had pointed her out as well. It wasn’t that he didn’t find that level of confidence in going after what one wanted attractive. But the woman at the bar wasn’t his type.

  “I’m told this, yes. But I promise not to cockblock you or anything.”

  Groaning, he shook his head. “Good to know. It’s a fine quality in a friend. I can, however, land my own ladies. And I never admit defeat.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t change reality. I want to dance.” Standing, she stretched before bending at the waist and gathering her hair, which she twisted into a messy knot. “Anyone want to join me?”

  “You’re going out front?”

  “Too gothy in here for me. I love to listen to industrial, but it’s not as easy to dance to as the stuff you’re playing out there.”

  “I know the owners. I can suggest something else to the DJ, you know.” Simon didn’t want her out there. It was safer back where they were. He’d have been just as concerned about any of his male friends, of course. But she was small. It brought his protective instincts out.

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “I’m sure you’d eat some of those human boys alive anyway if you went out there.”

  “Pshaw, Simon Leviathan! I don’t want to kill them. Though the eating part, well, that’s optional. Anyway, I don’t fool with humans. Too fragile. Too messy. I don’t like to hide my life from anyone I’m dating. Takes too much time and energy.”

  He of course agreed about dating humans.

  “Safer back here.” He slid from the booth and sought out the DJ. Soon enough something less dark and menacing came over the sound system. Must have done the trick because by the time he got back to his booth she’d made her way out to the dance floor where a long, lanky wolf had already danced up close.

  “Gonna be a lot quieter around here when she goes back to L.A.” Gage drained his drink and put it down. “I’m heading home for the night, folks. I told Nell I’d take a morning meeting for her. She’s more tired now that her second trimester is nearly over.”

  Meriel smiled at him. “I told her to reschedule that meeting for later in the day, for heaven’s sake. There’s no need for her to do any of this. I keep saying she needs to start delegating anyway.”

  Back home, females who were pregnant had the pack to count on for help. Like a huge extended family. Females would have their young and had plenty of time to recover as the babe would grow and mature. Here it was often different, though within Clan Owen, he could see it was much the same. And would continue to be now that Meriel had taken over leadership.

  “It’s okay. I should get to sleep anyway. She gets agitated when stuff gets moved around at the last minute and I really can’t complain.”

  “Oh! You’re sweet on Rose, aren’t you? That’s why you don’t care about moving the meeting. You want to see her.” Meriel leaned in, waiting for an answer.

  “Who’s Rose?” Simon had wondered if Gage and Lark were going to hook up.

  “She works in the IT department, which is what the meeting is about so she’ll be running it. Adorable.” Meriel grinned and Gage just groaned.

  “The two of you will be the death of me. Rose is going to walk me through the new cataloging program. It’s the one that will connect us to the national database. It’s what you wanted anyway, Meriel. We’re one of three clans to have it and we’ll do a test run. If it works out, the other clans will begin implementing it and we’ll have a lot more information at our fingertips. We can share our data with everyone, and vice versa.”

  He waved and headed over to Lark. She hugged him and kissed his cheek before Gage left.

  “You think there’s something between him and this Rose person? I thought he had googly eyes for Lark.”

  “There’s some chemistry there.” Dominic shrugged. “You can see it. But it’s not… ripe. It’s a what if sort of thing.”

  “Anyway, he knows her well enough to know she’d be a handful as a girlfriend.” Meriel snuggled into Dominic’s side.

  “Handful?”

  “She’s her own person. She likes what she likes. You should see her with her sister, Helena. Two more competitive women I’ve never met.”

  “What’s that story anyway? I just know she and her sister have some sort of tension about a dude.”

  Meriel gave him a look. “Not in the way you think. Neither of them would ever do anything like that to the other. It’s a long story and she seems to not want to talk about it. They’re very close. Someone got in the middle of it and it set them both back for a loop.”

  He respected that she didn’t want to share details if Lark would feel uncomfortable so he nodded. “I understand that.” He’d ask her himself when the time was right.

  Chapter 5

  IT’D felt like she’d only been asleep twenty minutes when her phone started ringing. With an annoyed sigh, she rolled over and grabbed it. “Jaansen.”

  It was Gage. “There’s been another kidnapping. We think anyway.”

  She sat up, pushing her hair from her face, already alert. “Hang on, let me get something to write on.” Luckily her pad and pen weren’t far so she was able to get back to Gage quickly. “Okay, go.”

  “Just got off the phone with Toronto. Two witches have gone missing. Both fairly high up in the clan. A bonded couple.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yes. Toronto was one of Gloria Ochoa’s feeding grounds back when she was alive. Some of the earliest disappearances of witches who turned up drained and dead were around there.” He paused. “They need some help. Are you up for it? It shouldn’t be a long trip, but they don’t know much about the mage situation and they could use the expertise. I can go if you can’t.”

  Now that she’d left home, she wasn’t so lonely for it. It’d been a busy two weeks since she’d arrived in Seattle. The whole point was to be useful so why not? “Nah, it’s why I came up here to begin with. I can be on a plane in a few hours.”

  He gave her all the pertinent details and contact info and she was out of bed and in motion.

  IT took her pretty much all day long to get there, but when she did, she was greeted by Dray Carter, the hunter for Clan Septiem and his second in command, Portia.

  “Appreciate the help. Nell has been singing your praises.” He looked her up and down. “You’re not going to last long with that coat. We’ll stop by the house and get you something better.”

  They hadn’t been kidding. Though she’d acclimated to Seattle’s far chillier weather, this, well, Toronto’s November was a whole different universe of cold. They hustled her through any open-air situations as quickly as possible and as promised, provided her with a far warmer coat when they dropped her bags off.

  “What do you need?” Dray asked as they headed back out.

  She needed to put it all together. Like a puzzle. So she’d start gathering the pieces. “I need some hot coffee. They were a bonded couple right?”

  Dray nodded. “Together for nine years.”

  “I read the file on the plane.” And she’d been convinced it was indeed the work of these turned witches. They’d been at this long enough to have patterns. And the pattern here wasn’t one that boded well for the witches who’d been taken. “I’d like to see where they work and where they live.”

  Brandy and Ernie Polla
rd had disappeared three days before. At first no one really noticed. The two had gone out to dinner with friends on Tuesday evening. The last time anyone had seen them. Wednesday came and neither showed up for work. Which was so unusual people suspected a problem right off and sent someone over to the house to check on them. That’s when they found signs of a struggle. Portia and Dray had gone out looking right away and had come up empty but for the smudge of magic that’d been used. Enough to know to call Owen.

  “We’ll take you to the house first.”

  Brandy and Ernie’s house wasn’t too far from Dray’s, but Lark used the time to get herself and her magick centered. She couldn’t afford to miss a single detail. In the last several disappearances, the only times they were successful at getting their people back alive had been in three days or less. They were right on that deadline and she had no plans to let these mages kill any more of her people.

  Getting out of the car, Portia plopped a big hat on Lark’s head and handed her gloves, which she took quickly and stepped away from them to open up her othersight. They left her alone as she reached down deep inside and threw the locks on her magick. The filters she used fell away and she saw the world on an entirely different level. Colors popped to life, the energies and magickal signatures of those Others in the area settled into place.

  The cool, focused blue of witches. Some green. “Weres around here by any chance?”

  Portia nodded. “Yes, across the street. This is an Other neighborhood. At least five other families on the three blocks around us. Werewolves, a vampire and some witches.”

  Lark walked, her magick surging through her body. She let it lead. Let her magick do what it did best. It knew more than her brain did just what to look for. The cold gave the air a sharpness, a clean scent that helped her cut past anything but signatures she cared about. Around the back of the house she saw it. The muddy smudge of a turned witch. “Here.” She pointed and kept walking.

  The wards were amateurish. With all the danger around for them, it seemed criminal for two full-council witches with all that power not to have warded better, or at the very least to have had witches who were good at warding come out and do it for them.

  “Wards are weak.” The words were sort of offhand as she moved. Her magick sang through her consciousness, filling her with that sharpness of wit and attention she needed to do her job.

  She saw the world she moved through. The furniture, other people, all that. But with her othersight open, she saw the energies all around. Energies most people never noticed. But magick created a subtle change in the air, left an imprint. That’s what her othersight helped her focus on.

  Inside the back door and she saw more. “Two distinct signatures here. A turned witch and…” She came to a halt, breathing deep. “Well now, this is interesting.” Crouching, she caught a wisp of something different. “What do we have here?” Yellow with some orange. Jagged like a prickle burr.

  Portia knelt next to her, looking. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s Other, that much I know.” She pulled out her little notebook and jotted down some impressions. “It’s not mage. It’s not turned witch. Not Were, not vamp. I don’t know what it is, but I know what it isn’t. So let’s keep looking.”

  She did so, keeping low and catching more from that angle than she would have standing. Learned that one from her father. Smart criminals tried to wipe their tracks, but they often forgot what clung to carpet in corners or the feet of chairs and couches.

  Lark continued to move through the house, going room by room. At the end she got to her feet.

  “Your witches were taken. Taken by a turned witch and something else. I don’t know what. I’ll consult with some people I know to see if they have any suggestions.”

  “I can’t believe I missed that.” Dray hung his head.

  “Next time, get on your hands and knees. You’ll miss less that way. Otherwise, it’s not like this is taught in third grade. You can’t beat yourself up over it. What you can do though is make sure your witches have decent wards on their homes. If this house had been warded better, they may have had the time to at the very least have called for help. They had shitty locks and they had shitty wards. It would have been embarrassingly easy to walk in to this house.”

  “Vivienne, the Septiem, she wants to meet you before you go back. If you could bring it up, then I’d appreciate it. She’s old school. It was hard to ask for help, but she did. So if you could find a way to bring up the inefficacy of the wards, it would be better received from you.” Portia shrugged.

  Many clan leaders of Edwina’s generation were prideful and hesitant to make necessary changes. Lark understood a lot of it. Part of it was that they were proud and they loved their rules and liked to be in charge of their own little fiefdoms. But mainly it was that witches had thousands of years of bad examples of what happened when humans found out about them. None of them was anxious to expose their people to angry mobs and inquisitors again.

  But there was no way to avoid the fact that change was coming whether they wanted it to or not. “All right. On to the yard and surrounding area and then to their workplaces, please.”

  When they got outside, a Were waited at the fence line. “Did you find them?”

  Lark went over. “I hope we can. Did you see anything?”

  “This is Hansen. He’s a member of the local pack. We interviewed him yesterday. Hansen, this is Lark; she’s a hunter from another clan out here to help us track Brandy and Ernie.”

  Hansen nodded. “Good. I didn’t see anything on Tuesday or yesterday. I got in late Tuesday, early Wednesday. Was out for a run with my friends. The lights were on over there. But Brandy was a night owl. Worked on her loom. She’s a weaver. I feel like crap for not knowing they were missing. I’ve been their neighbor for four years. They’re good people.”

  “Hansen, can I ask a favor of you?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “I’m tracking with my magick. Have you shifted and gone over the area at all? You see things on a whole different level and I’d appreciate your perspective.” Another thing they were stupid not to do, engage the help of those Others who could give it. Like a sharp-nosed werewolf for instance.

  “I’d be honored.”

  He shifted, scented and went around the entire property, through the house and came back out to them once again wearing a human skin and clothing.

  “First I need to tell you we’ve had our own disappearance recently. I wasn’t at the scene afterward, but from what I understand, the scents were much like those here. I’m not supposed to talk about it with outsiders, but this has gone on long enough. I’m going to call my Alpha to see if we can’t share some info.” And then he told her all he’d found around the scene.

  “SO this is what we know. Two Others entered the house from the rear. They used some sort of magic to subdue Brandy in her workroom and then went to Ernie where he was sleeping in their bedroom. They took them out the same back door and through the alley. They must have put them in a vehicle because the scent and magick imprints disappear at that point. Their neighbor, a werewolf from your local pack, shifted and investigated around the area. We may have a lead on the type of car they were in.”

  Vivienne Septiem nodded. “I thank you so much for coming up here on such short notice. What’s next?”

  “Dray and Portia are working on the vehicle leads. The local pack has offered to help and will get back to me later today on whatever, if anything, they find. They seem very eager to help. They like your witches. Moreover, they have a missing packmember as well. The situation is very similar. Similar enough that I believe they are connected. Which of course means this is far more organized and with a wider focus than we first believed.”

  “Why would they attack witches and Weres? We’re different. Are you sure it’s not just a coincidence?”

  Thank heavens Meriel hadn’t said anything like that when Lark had called her just an hour before to update her on the
situation.

  “We both have magick. That’s the common thread and we’re working on that angle now. As for Brandy and Ernie…” Lark sighed. “A big plus is that their neighborhood is pretty special. Not only are there a lot of Others around, but they’ve all come out of the woodwork with offers to help. I’m working with the people in Gennessee and Owen archives to pinpoint the signature I didn’t recognize. One of the witches from your archive went out this morning and he doesn’t recognize it either but he’s working on that as well.”

  Vivienne sat back and held Lark’s gaze. “How long do we have? I mean, realistically, are they still alive?”

  “Every minute we don’t find them makes that less and less a possibility. Which is why Dray put three shifts on it. You need to get everyone warded.” She explained the warding situation at Brandy and Ernie’s house. “I know it seems like we can handle anything. And if they’d been caught in another situation, they most likely could have. But from everything I’m seeing, they were stalked for some time before they were taken. Which means others may be in danger of the same thing.”

  “We never used to have to worry about this.”

  “Brave new world. Now we’re juicy steaks to starving, desperate criminals. We have the ability to protect ourselves. We should do that.”

  Lark went on to explain the training Dray and Portia were going to implement with some of the other East Coast witches. Some of which were in the process of creating clans or at the very least covens. The era of the lone witch, at least when they were so targeted, was over. They had to unite or they risked exposure and worse.

  And yet three days later when she left Toronto, it was with the memories of having to tell Vivienne they’d found the abused and abandoned dead bodies of their missing witches. Brandy had been brutalized far more than the others they’d found. It was more than just draining her magick, something far more sadistic had come to play and while Lark hoped it was just that onetime thing, she had a sinking feeling in her gut that this might be the new normal.